Selected Journalism

by Oscar Wilde, Anya Clayworth (Editor)

"The subject of a work of art has of course nothing to do with its beauty, but still there is always something depressing about the coloured lithograph of a leg of mutton."
Thus, in typical fashion, Oscar Wilde reviews the latest cookbook. Throughout the 1880s, Wilde honed his literary talent in numerous articles and reviews for some of the leading periodicals of the day. He wrote on subjects ranging from women's dress to the American invasion of English society, from a lecture by Whistler to a production of Hamlet starring Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. Witty and perceptive, often hilarious, Wilde's journalism shows him responding to writers such as Swinburne and Balzac, as well as to the latest theatrical trends and a wide range of topical issues. This edition shows how Wilde's journalistic techniques inform his later critical essays and social comedies. It also offers an insight into the colorful world of magazine publishing in the late nineteenth century.

213 pages, Paperback

First published May 27, 2004

About the author

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.

Reviews

[Yasmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did read this book when it must have been first published, it's still marvellous reading. This book has collected a few of the writings of Oscar Wilde hardly discussed anyway and is not part of the usual large collection of his works. Some people may find his style of writing, poetic and flowery, to be dated. But if you are familiar with his writings then you will be delighted with this thin book. It is only a pity that this book is so thin and short.